


The Nameless

by draculard



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Found Family, Gen, Healed for More Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Experimentation, Medical Torture, Mild Gore, Needles, Non-Sexual Slavery, Rescue, Restraints, Shock Collars, Slavery, Synthetic Flesh, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:35:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25907440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: After Order 66, all Jedi survivors are rounded up and forced into medical experimentation to destroy their Force sensitivity. Caleb Dume is no exception.
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Kanan Jarrus
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43
Collections: Darkest Night 2020





	The Nameless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Independence1776](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Independence1776/gifts).



**5 BBY**

Usually the Imperial slaves brought to Lothal weren’t human. Ezra had seen Wookiees and Ugnaughts bought or traded for — not out in the open, but still open enough for a Loth-rat like him to find out — and he’d seen other aliens, too, aliens he couldn’t name right away. But humans were rare — they were Imperial deserters, sometimes, or captured Rebels, or former Republic Senators who’d strayed too far from the Imperial party line. Undesirables. People who stirred the pot.

This was the first time he’d ever seen a Jedi.

Cramped in the ceiling ducts, Ezra leaned as close to the cracks beneath him as he could get, peering through to see what happened in the room below. Most of the slaves were chained together, but the human was off on his own — separated from the rest and surrounded by no less than a dozen Imperial guards. His hands were in binders behind his back; a shock collar circled his neck, and even from up in the ceiling, Ezra could see how tight it was. The durasteel edges bit into the human slave’s skin; when he narrowed his eyes and really concentrated, he realized the dark band lining the durasteel wasn’t rubber edging, like he’d first assumed. It was actually the human’s skin, bruised to an ugly purple by long hours — maybe days, maybe weeks — in the collar.

Ezra shifted quietly, pressing the left side of his head against one of the cracks in the duct. From this angle, he could see the other slaves a little better — and none of them were wearing collars. He pulled away with a thoughtful frown.

“—not interested,” said the buyer below. Because of the angle, Ezra couldn’t see his face, but he knew the voice well enough. It was a local gangster, probably just scouting the slaves for his boss. The Imperials wouldn’t know that, most likely; they thought they were dealing with the real deal. 

“Not interested in a _Jedi_?” said a supercilious-looking little Imperial not much older than Ezra. Despite his age, he was dressed in an officer’s uniform and had a pinched look of superiority stamped onto his face. “Perhaps you might reconsider.”

The stormtroopers guarding the Jedi prodded him, their strange-looking staffs buzzing with energy as they came into contact with the Jedi’s skin. Electrostaffs? Ezra had heard of them in holos, but he’d never seen them in real life before. Strictly speaking, they weren’t legal. He watched as the troopers prodded the Jedi again, inching him closer to the gangster on his knees. Smoke rose from his skin — and the smell of burnt flesh wafted up to the ducts — but he didn’t flinch.

“I don’t want a Jedi,” said the gangster firmly. “You think I’m stupid? I can see the needle marks on it from here.”

Ezra leaned closer, struggling to hear. 

“That thing’s not even sensitive anymore,” the gangster said.

* * *

**19 BBY**

“Don’t,” Caleb said.

His voice came out weak and small — babyish, like the younglings he’d looked on with pity back at the Temple, the ones who always copped out during lightsaber training and ceded ground in a fight. The ones who’d died on Coruscant when the Order went through. He heard the tremor in his own voice and despised it, but there was nothing he could do to stop it.

The Imperial medical officer only shrugged at him. The droids only tightened Caleb’s restraints. Every crank of the lever built into his medical rack drew his hands farther above his head and wrenched them closer together, until his arms were bent back at a shoulder-breaking angle and his biceps were trembling from the strain. His legs were clamped down firmly, with modified binders digging into his bare skin.

He couldn’t move. He could only watch as the needle approached him. The metal gleamed dully under the bright medbay lights; the point looked dull, but it was sharp enough to get the job done. Caleb knew from experience. He grit his teeth so hard he thought they might shatter, and the needle — the long, thick needle — rested for just a moment against the unbroken skin in the crook beneath his ribs.

It pressed closer, sharp pain radiating from the point. He watched his skin bulge as the needle slipped inside him, just beneath the upper layer of flesh, metal pressing into his veins. 

And then the droid pressed firmly on the plunger, and the real pain began. Caleb didn’t know what they were injecting him with; no one ever bothered to explain. But he knew it burned right from the moment it entered his body, and he knew that for the next hour, as it circulated through his body, the burning would only get worse.

The liquid was thick — a pale, unnatural shade of translucent blue — too thick to ever join properly with his blood. He could feel it eating away at his body’s natural cells, devouring anything it came into contact with with the hunger and ferocity of a predator; he could feel his blood cells dissolving, blackening; his veins turning to decay.

They thought it destroyed midichlorians. Maybe it did; he didn’t know. 

He just wanted it to end.

* * *

**5 BBY**

What use was a Jedi, Ezra wondered, if he couldn’t even use the Force?

He followed the slavers at a distance, certain he wouldn’t be noticed. This was _his_ home turf, after all, not theirs. It was late in the day, and by now, all the alien slaves had been sold off. Only the human remained; he walked before his captors with a grace and dignity Ezra had never seen before — not here on Lothal, anyway; in holo-films, yeah, sure — and stumbled only occasionally, even though exhaustion dragged his frame down.

The number of stormtroopers surrounding him had dwindled gradually throughout the day; it had taken Ezra a full hour of stealth and surveillance to realize the guard was mostly for show. They’d been called away by comlink for other missions — grunt work, it sounded like — until only two were left.

Two armored troopers. One unarmored officer. One slave.

And Ezra.

Not great odds, he knew. But he’d been watching them closely, and he knew they were heading back to their shuttle — better still, they were heading for it along the outer alleys of Lothal, and soon enough they’d turn south — they had no other choice — and they’d find themselves trapped between Ezra and a fresh bundle of durasteel shipping crates, four meters tall. A local smuggler had put them there just yesterday; they weren’t marked on the HoloNet map the officer kept consulting. 

His adrenaline spiked as the officer stopped, glanced around in confusion, and then — yes! — pointed his troopers south. One of them ignited his electrostaff and used it to prod the Jedi slave forward; the sizzling tip of it stabbed into the Jedi’s bare back and sent him lurching forward, away from the pain. From his viewpoint several meters back, Ezra could see the fresh red welt left between the Jedi’s shoulder blades; the flesh had practically melted at one touch from the staff, leaving waxy blisters in its wake. 

And yet the Jedi barely flinched; he stumbled, but there was no pain on his face. Had he risen above it? There were rumors the Jedi knew how to shut off their nerves at will — that they could turn off their body’s response to pain as easily as they turned off their lightsabers after a battle. But was that what happened?

Ezra eyed the discolored patches on the Jedi’s back — burn marks, some healed, some not — and thought perhaps the Jedi was just used to it. He watched as the stormtroopers led the way south, gave them a few seconds, and then followed at a distance.

When they turned the corner into the blocked alley, he broke into a silent run. He reached the mouth of the alley in time to see the stormtroopers turn away from the stacked crates, looking to their office for orders.

The officer didn’t get a chance to tell them what to do. He’d just opened his mouth when Ezra withdrew his hand from his jacket and tossed a flimsiwrap ball no larger than a marble into the alley. It bounced off the crate at eye-level — eye-level for the stormtroopers at least — and burst apart at the seams.

“What the—?” the officer said, but before he could finish his sentence, the chemicals inside the makeshift weapon came into contact with each other — and more importantly, with the fresh Lothal air — and reacted.

Gas hissed through the alley. The stormtroopers reached automatically for the air filtration buttons on their masks — but that wouldn’t help them here. As soon as the gas came into contact with their armor, it spread into an oily layer and quickly solidified, covering them with wet synthstone. The officer’s eyes widened when he saw this, and then he looked at his own legs in horror as the chemicals landed there. The Jedi, at least, had sense enough to run before the gas had spread too far; he made it only two meters before his shock collar lit up with white-hot electric light and sent him tumbling to the ground at Ezra’s feet.

Ezra looked at the Imperials. They couldn’t move; they couldn’t even reach for their blasters. He looked down at the Jedi, injured and emaciated and covered in scars.

“Come on,” he said, and helped the Jedi to his feet.

* * *

**18 BBY**

The Inquisitor’s voice was silky and nauseating all at once. Caleb kept his eyes closed and let the voice stab into his ears, unwilling to look into his torturer’s face. With his eyes closed, he could pretend he was anywhere else — with anyone else — on the battlefield with Master Billaba, if he wanted to be.

“It’s not to hurt you,” the Inquisitor whispered to him. His hand, cold and long-fingered, caressed Caleb’s bare arm where the latest injections had stabbed into his skin. Despite himself, he leaned into the cool hand; he couldn’t help it. It felt good against his flushed skin — soothing.

“It’s not to cause you harm,” the Inquisitor said. “It’s to _help_ you, Caleb Dume. You are, by blood and doctrine, tied to an organization bent on destroying everything that is law and order in this galaxy. With our help, you can sever that bond forever. _You_ can change your doctrine. _We_ can change your blood.”

Abruptly, that cool hand was snatched away. Caleb opened his eyes by reflex, then squinched them closed again, his heart beating fast. Too late. He’d seen the instrument in the Inquisitor’s hand. He knew what was coming. 

“It’s for your own good,” the Inquisitor said. 

The hooks of the instrument were as sharp as a scalpel blade. They pierced through Caleb’s flesh like a lightsaber slicing through butter, leaving red-hot blooms of pain wherever they touched. Looking down, he saw the hooks tugging his flesh apart in seams; blood welled from the new holes in his body, bubbling up in black-red lines and rolling down the stark lines of his ribs and hips. 

He watched the Inquisitor peel back strips of his skin, snapping off the thin, translucent layers that bound his flesh to his body. Water leaked from his eyes; his lungs stuttered, chest aching with a cold, wet pain — like nothing he’d ever felt before.

He watched the Inquisitor expose muscle. He watched him expose bone, the white of it stained dark by Caleb’s blood. The hooks pulled his flesh back from the navel, leaving a star of organs and muscle to throb beneath the artifical medbay lights. 

And only then, when every most intimate part of him had been exposed, did the Inquisitor take up his needle again.

“This will get it into your system faster than a simple injection,” he explained to Caleb calmly. He pressed the point of the needle into Caleb’s open wound — pierced right into the blue-red veins — and let the searing flame of midichlorian-eating liquid flow into him. 

Caleb endured thirty seconds of it, and then his vision greyed out. When he woke, he could almost pretend nothing had happened. The wound on his stomach was stitched together; a bacta patch was hard at work on the pink, swollen scars. 

“Turn him over,” he heard the Inquisitor say to the medical droid. “He’s healed enough. We’ll try it from his spine.”

* * *

**5 BBY**

By the time the Imperials broke through the synthstone, Ezra and the Jedi slave were long gone. He’d traded his last batch of homemade stone-bombs to borrow a loadlifter from Ferrik De’raz, and with that on his side to carry the Jedi, it had only taken a few minutes to reach his hideout. 

The Jedi said nothing; he sat quietly on the loadlifter, his balance exceptional as Ezra guided it over Lothal’s uneven streets and through back alleys. His face was hard and unreadable; he didn’t ask who Ezra was or why he’d saved him. And he didn’t offer up any information about himself.

Ezra, on the other hand, didn’t stop talking the whole way.

“That was so cool!” he said. “I’m gonna be honest, I had no idea if those stone-bombs would work. The rest are probably all duds — I’ve never had the chance to test them before. But did you see how fast they worked? It’s like, as soon as the oil layer hits you, you’re done! I bet their armor is completely blitzed; they’ll never get all the stone out of it — stormtrooper armor’s so porous that once stuff gets in, it never comes out. Trust me, I’ve got a whole collection at home.”

The Jedi didn’t reply. He shifted slightly on the surface of the loadlifter, taking the weight of his bruised, bony knees. Ezra glanced down at the binders still cuffed around his wrists and bit his lip.

“I’ll take those off you as soon as we get home,” he promised. “I’ve got a key that opens pretty much any Imperial binder. Doesn’t matter what model. We’ll get them off in no time.”

But the shock collar — that one he wasn’t so sure about. He wouldn’t mention it for now; maybe when he took a closer look later on, he’d find out it had a simple lock, easy to break … but he doubted it. 

He steered the loadlifter toward his hideout door and stopped it there. It lowered to the ground slowly, the thrusters emitting a soft hum as they powered down. Ezra hovered nearby, shuffling his feet anxiously, and as soon as the lifter was flat on the ground he hurried forward and helped the Jedi off.

He kept one hand on the Jedi’s shoulder and one on his scarred back as he led him inside. It was slow moving; the Jedi dragged his feet — narrow and strange-looking feet, Ezra thought; like he’d spent his formative years never walking more than a few meters at a time; like the structure of his bones had warped somehow in a way Ezra couldn’t define. 

The only furniture in the cramped apartment was Ezra’s mattress, which sat flat on the floor like the loadlifter outside. The Jedi allowed himself to be led to it, but he sat on the edge without Ezra’s assistance, shrugging his hands off without a word.

Ezra took the hint. He backed off, keeping as much space between himself and the Jedi as he could, and looked for his universal key. When he had it in hand, he turned back to the Jedi and flashed a brittle smile. 

“I’m Ezra Bridger, by the way,” he said. 

The Jedi looked at him with hooded, bloodshot eyes. Ezra’s smile wavered.

“And you’re a Jedi,” he said, less confidently. 

“I’m government property,” the Jedi corrected him. 

* * *

**17 BBY**

He had his hospital clothes and nothing else, and if he was defiant, they took away even that. In time, Caleb learned to sit still and be silent — the same lessons Master Yoda tried to teach him as a youngling in the Jedi Temple, now heightened to the level of life and death. If he sat still, the experiments were over faster. If he stayed silent, he could sometimes convince himself he didn’t feel any pain. 

He learned not to ask questions within the first day. He learned not to speak at all over the course of a year. By the time he turned fifteen, he hadn’t grown a single inch taller — and he’d lost weight rather than gained it — and his voice had dwindled to a disused scratch in his throat. He learned to treasure the small things: the flimsi uniform they gave him to cover himself; the nutrient paste served once a day for food; the moments between injections and tests when he could sleep.

Master Billaba had told him once that a Jedi’s role in the universe was flexible, always-changing — she’d never told him that someday the Jedi’s role would be to cease existing altogether. She didn’t tell him that the Temple would fall, that children would be slaughtered by their friends and masters, that midichlorians could be stripped from his blood, or that one day he’d reach out to the Force for strength — for comfort — and feel nothing at all. 

He didn’t care that she hadn’t warned him. He’d do anything to see her again.

He’d do anything to feel the touch of a friend.

* * *

**5 BBY**

The holo-display on Ezra’s datapad was cracked, but he could still watch the evening news. The images flickered, and there was a static-y buzz to the reports that gave him a headache, but he could still watch. There was no mention of an attack on Imperials — either they hadn’t worked their way free of the synthstone yet, or they were too embarrassed to tell anyone what happened. 

He didn’t dare search up information on Jedi slaves — not on the Holonet. It was all monitored by the Imperial Security Bureau; he knew a guy whose cousin had searched for data on the Jedi rebellion years ago and men in white tunics had showed up to take him away the very same night. He’d never come back; the Imperials said he was alive and well, that he’d moved into the manufacturing industry on Coruscant, but he’d never so much as sent a holo message home. 

But it didn’t matter, really; Ezra had heard about Jedi slaves before. People whispered about it; rumors proliferated no matter what the penalty was for loose lips. They were survivors of the insurrection, he’d heard — or Force-sensitives who’d been discovered afterward, sometimes, in orphanages, schools, and shelters after the Clone Wars. Some people called them “volunteers” — they gave themselves up of their own free will, supposedly, for the sake of the greater good. And the greater good, so far as Ezra could tell, was to eliminate Force-sensitives entirely — by genocide or medical innoculation, either one. 

He eyed the Jedi sitting uncomfortably on his mattress. The binders lay discarded on the floor, the lock deactivated; the Jedi’s wrists were raw, but not just from one day in chains — the skin beneath the binders looked rough and swollen, and when Ezra got closer, he could see that there were years upon years of scars circling the Jedi’s wrists. He could see grafts of synthetic flesh along the tendons, a shade lighter than the Jedi’s real skin. 

Silently, Ezra took a seat beside the Jedi. He waited a minute — two minutes — then three, doing nothing, just sitting there and breathing. Giving the Jedi time to acclimate to his presence. 

“I’m gonna try and break the lock on your shock collar,” he offered. 

The Jedi shook his head.

“Come on, it’s worth a try,” Ezra said. He uncurled a strip of leather in his hands, showing the Jedi a series of mostly-not-rusted durasteel tools he’d collected over the years since his parents died. “It can’t hurt, can it?”

For the first time, the Jedi smiled. It was a hollow twitch of the lips, more like a grimace than anything else.

“It’s all that’s keeping my throat together,” he said. Then, to simplify things, “Yes. It can hurt.”

* * *

**7 BBY**

They didn’t put him in the bacta tank this time. 

Caleb drifted in and out of consciousness, never sure how much time had passed, but every time he woke up, he was still in the medbay and still clutching a stiff, blood-soaked cloth to his throat. The new strain of injections had gone wrong — it was meant to keep midichlorians from regenerating; maybe it succeeded, maybe not, but there were side effects. He’d felt the burning in his esophagus only a few hours after his last injection — and then the burning had turned to something like melting — like being eaten alive by acid — and when he’d touched his throat, a mess of skin and blood and gristle had sloughed away in his hand. 

Numbly, not even panicking yet, he’d looked at the reflective durasteel chestplate of the medical droid. His reflection wavered, warped by the curved surface. He could see the tendons in his throat. When he spoke, he could see cords vibrating inside of him.

“My throat…” he said.

The medical collar came shortly after that. A tube of treated bacta circulated through it, soothing his throat and keeping the blood clotted, but never fully healing it. Electronic probes stabbed straight into his flesh, mending his decaying flesh, integrating it with synthetic, semi-sentient grafts that ate at his real tissue even as they replaced it. 

The grafts bonded to his muscles; they bonded to the collar, too. Within a month, his doctors could not remove the collar without reopening the wound.

“Keeps him branded,” said the Inquisitor with an elegant shrug. He tipped Caleb’s head back as he said it, ran his thumb over the Imperial sigil engraved on the collar. 

They had it outfitted for electric shocks within a week.

* * *

**5 BBY**

Government property. Ezra brushed the tarnished Imperial symbol on the Jedi’s shock collar with the pad of his thumb. That’s all the Jedi were anymore — government property, powerless, disenfranchised. Slaves. 

But not this one.

He pulled the Jedi to him, held him close as he started to tremble.

Not anymore.


End file.
